Album Review//David Lynch - The Big Dream
When David Lynch
released his last solo album Crazy Clown Time in 2011 it was received in much
the same as his films. It’s beautiful… but it’s crazy. And whilst some take a
negative stance on that we certainly didn’t. It was one of our highlights of
2011 and still hits our CD deck regularly – weird is definitely something we
should expect from the man who drinks coffee like water.
And just as fine
coffee grabs our attention with little effort so does fine music. The follow up
to Crazy Clown Time is The Big Dream, with a distinctly more stripped down feel
than its predecessor. Taking its cue
from subterranean blues the record takes a subtler approach with the guitars
down low in the production and the vocals on the quietly creepy side.
The torturous tension
that burns beneath the surface is tangible and the visual impact of the album
pays off handsomely. Its cover art depicts a man being struck by lightning –
apparently a representation of a sort of dark happiness according to Lynch and
it’s an effective visual key. The record does feel like a long dark moment of
the soul set to music almost like a road trip into the dark consciousness of
its author. But would we expect anything else from David Lynch?
Set to visuals it
makes an excellent proposition. Lynch’s primary art is film and it’s obvious
from the visual impact of the music. The lyrics paint a hazy, fog tainted
picture where nothing is quite clear and taken as a whole it’s very palatable
experience. Where Crazy Clown Time took elements of a number of genre’s and
forged a record that was occasionally over long – but never the less brilliant –
the stripped down blues element at play here serves the twelve tracks
perfectly.
Lynch’s voice is as
unique as the person who owns it and on many of the track he surpasses the
performances on Crazy Clown Time. Our personal highlights include (the non
album track) I’m Waiting Here, featuring Lykke Li and Star Dream Girl. And
unlike Crazy Clown Time it is perfectly possible to listen to this in one go –
from beginning to end.
That’s no bad thing by the way – but an evolution is
always a good thing. True – we loved the contents of ‘Clown Time but we love ‘Dream
from beginning to end. May Mr Lynch make many more albums say we!